As our gardens wind down the growing season, fall is the time to get our gardens ready for next spring. Have you ever considered planting a cover crop in your garden? Maybe you should, cover crops improve our garden soil in many ways. Cover crops add a blanket of green to our otherwise bare soil that protects the soil from eroding, their roots keep soil nutrients from leaving the your...

The monarch butterfly is probably one of the most recognizable of all the North American butterflies. In recent weeks you may have noticed a lot of them in the area and haven't given them a second thought. But did you see any earlier this summer? I can count on one hand the number of monarchs I saw this summer until a week or two ago. These once common butterflies are becoming increasingly rare...

This week, our office celebrated 10 years of the annual Tomato Taste Panel. Each year, participants get to sample multiple varieties of tomatoes, including some heirlooms. Not only is tasting a must at this event, but many participants get ideas for tomatoes they want to grow.
While sampling tomatoes raw off toothpicks is one way to eat them, many of us enjoy tomatoes combined with oth...